Woodpile 2: "Baby, You've Been On My Mind" b/w "Baby's Bringing Kisses"

Baby, baby, baby, BAAAYYYYBEEEH, bay-buh!!  That's rock n' roll speak for you.  Silly, isn't it?  But if you had a nickel for every "baby" cut to vinyl since, oh, I dunno.... since Ike Turner, Jackie Brenston and Co. Cut "Rocket 88" with Sam Philips in '51?  To paraphrase the Fab Four, baby, you'd be a rich man.  But, baby, it's a great lyrical tool-- a little word that can be deployed in any number of ways, with any number of intentions.  Shouted, whispered, lascivious, sincere, whatever you've got.  Sincerely lascivious, maybe?  Anyways, two variations on the theme follow, in the acoustical format:

The title "Baby you've Been On My Mind" is a blatant Dylan rip-off, and the song isn't far off, either.  It supplies the cockeyed, puppydog, corn pone, yelpy/ pleady variant of the rock n' roll "baby".  Good lord, but it's a stupid song.  Fun as heck to play, though.  It started out as a deliberate attempt to dumb down and do things like rhyme "moon" with "June", "true" with "blue" and so on, and to give shout-outs to those delicious Carling's Black Label and Pabst Blue Ribbon beers, which were on heavy rotation at the time.  It was even too dumb for the Honcho band of Baltimore back in the waning '90s, which might be saying something.  But, next thing you know, the lil' bastard's done grown on me....

"Baby's Bringing Kisses" is more stately number.  (Hint: The slow pace and fancy shmancy chords are the tipoff!)  It was written on a rickety upright piano in my old apartment in "The Eden of America": Jamaica Plain, Boston, MA, late '99 or so. Despite the trappings, though, the allegiances of the "baby" in question are equally up in the air as in its country cousin above.  It's a hard-knock life fer sure... 

JK

Baby, You've Been On My Mind:  https://www.box.com/s/7a77b7e94f8d60a87d8a


Baby's Bringing Kisses:                https://www.box.com/s/6bd14d3a1c254c02996e